David in Gomorrah

Manhattan's own David Susskind, successful producer of safe-at-home TV classics and voluble critic of TV's lack of daring, has been, to use his favorite verb, denigrating Hollywood for years. "Hollywood has an advanced case of intellectual leprosy." he says. "It is sterile and bland. a place of languor and procrastination, of overwhelming provincialism." Hollywood's responses are equally engaging. "Susskind." says Oscar Levant, "is salami dipped in chicken fat." Yet there was Susskind. out in the Hollywood provinces last week, and not just to carry the battle to the enemy's home ground. He was there to show the languorous natives how to make motion pictures--and money. Among the Barbarians. Producing the screen version of A Raisin in the Sun for Columbia Pictures. Susskind makes it clear to all Hollywood that he is an East Coast messiah. Tossing off remarks about filmland's Gomorrah atmosphere, its chronic fearfulness. its tendency "to run with the tide." he sits in self-imposed isolation at one end of the long table in Columbia's executive dining room and baits the mighty. At a recent lunch, he noted in a loud, salad-wilting voice that Eddie Fisher would be producing Elizabeth Taylor's next picture for Columbia. Studio Boss Sam Briskin. according to Susskind. spoke up from 20 feet away to defend the arrangement and asked what Susskind thought of it. "It's maniacal." said Susskind smoothly. "The next picture Elizabeth Taylor makes for you after this she will insist that her mother-in-law play the part of the other woman. After a while you won't be running a major studio. You'll just be renting property.''

Susskind has flirted with Hollywood in the past, but he had insufficient power to make his presence felt. After fruitless chats with M-G-eminence Benny Thau, he came away saying: "The only thing we have in common is breathing." His current mission, as he sees it. is to light Hollywood's way out of its cultural cave. After A Raisin in the Sun, he has contracted to do three more films for Columbia, is considering doing the life of Evita Peron, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Rich Boy and Brendan Behan's The Quare Fellow.

He also has ambitious ideas of taking over a major studio some day, or. failing that, starting one. "If you are a man of passions." he said passionately last week, "out here they label you a kook. a Commie, or an angle player." With head characteristically lowered, fists clenched, he went on: "I am a leader. I think. I can. I act. I want to lead with what I believe to be the truth. It makes me feel good inside. If I am an angle player, that is my angle." The fists unclenched and the lowered eyes raised slowly, effectively.

Angles & Bells. Hollywood, for its part, isn't going for the angle. Groucho Marx, not even bothering to make his bark witty, summed up one school of local opinion by calling Susskind "this phony New York intellectual." In a Daily Variety column. Humorist Max Shulman wrote of "Mr. Susskind, the noted television trailblazer. who gave us a video adaptation of The Bells of St. Mary's." Susskind sniffed: "People mention these things to me. but I absolutely refuse to read the local papers and the trade papers. I only read the New York papers."

No one can denigrate Susskind's success. Culturally, he may be a would-be explorer who has so far been little more than an exploiter, but financially at least he is the producer phenomenon of modern show business. He will produce $30 million worth of TV shows this year (up $12 million from last year). Partly because he is a perfectionist and partly because his better writers are buried like in Westminster Abbey, his shows will usually be good ones. Meanwhile, his East Coast flacks are putting out the word that "Hollywood has fallen at David Susskind's feet."

There is a grain of truth in it. Hollywood is bending over--hoping to pull the rug out from under him.

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